The Hungarian Opposition Primaries of Fall 2021: Testing the Feasible in an Authoritarian Regime

This note reports and analyzes a use of primary elections in an authoritarian regime. The Hungarian opposition parties grouped with the aim to choose joint single-member district candidates and a ticket-leader to unseat Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his party in the 2022 parliamentary elections. Our analysis explores the context and reasons for the choices they made regarding the rules and logistics, and shows that an open and unpredictable context was created and led to the victory of a potent but somewhat unpredictable independent candidate for prime minister, Péter Márki-Zay, who, in second round of the primary, defeated the liberal social democrat Klara Dobrev, who was much more deeply socialized into the pre-existing norms and behavioral patterns of the anti-Orbán electoral alliance. A detailed focus on the impact of the primaries is provided in the last part, in particular with regards to the significant publicity granted to the opposition, the successful recruitment of new activists, and the acquisition of a large and legal voter database for the upcoming legislative campaign.